


Lady Winter

by SomeEnchantedEve



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Consent, F/M, Sexual Content, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-20
Updated: 2012-03-03
Packaged: 2017-10-31 11:49:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeEnchantedEve/pseuds/SomeEnchantedEve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And so it is as it ever was, Catelyn drinks from a golden chalice and Lysa swallows misery and spite." A look at the complicated relationship of the Tully sisters throughout the years, told through a series of vignettes. </p><p>Part One - Lysa<br/>Part Two - Catelyn</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One - Lysa

**Author's Note:**

> While Catelyn is my absolute favorite character of the series, I often feel badly for Lysa for all the tragedy she had to suffer in her life, as well. I also find the relationship between these two - who were so close as children - incredibly fascinating. This is tentatively a two part series, Part One: Lysa is complete and Part Two: Catelyn is in the works!
> 
> Spoilers through A Feast for Crows.

_If you find your family don't you cry  
In this land of make believe, dead and dry  
You're so cold but you feel alive  
Lay your hand on me one last time_  
-Breaking Benjamin

_One._

They are children of spring, but the elder of the two plucks white flowers from the soft ground, poking them in her fiery plait. "I am Lady Winter," she crows joyfully, spreading her arms wide. The sunlight darting through the trees catches on her fair skin and bright hair and makes it shine, and she is a goddess of spring, she is the Maiden, she is no winter lady.

"It's summer," Lysa declares, and she flops to the ground, her skirts falling around her, and she pouts in bad temper, the child denied a treat that her luckier sister received. "And you're not betrothed yet. You're no lady."

"Soon," Catelyn says stubbornly. She sits next to her sister, never minding the stains of dirt and grass and the scolding they will receive from their septa for them later. "And the North has summer snows."

Lysa frowns again, her pretty face creasing in her distress. They had been listening outside the solar, breathless from a game of hide and seek with their brother and Petyr, and craned to hear their father's words through the thick oaken door. The North for little Cat, he had declared, the North and Winterfell and its heir Brandon Stark. A great match, he thought, and certainly Lord Rickard would agree when he suggested the betrothal be made.

They heard no talk of Lysa, of where she might go or the life she may lead, but she is young, she knows. Someday, she will have a great match of her own and she will be a great lady, too, perhaps even grander than Catelyn who is looking so pleased with herself today.

Her sister's fingers are gentle through her hair as she tugs out the knots and begins to make a matching plait for Lysa. "Don't be jealous."

"I'm not," Lysa insists as Catelyn weaves flowers through her hair as well. Not white, white is for Catelyn though white flowers are flowers still and Lysa hears none grow in the North. No, Lysa gets blue and red in her hair, the colors of a Tully, the colors of their house. "I'm not jealous." Cat's hands are gentle, and Lysa closes her eyes lazily at the touch.

"Maybe you'll marry Petyr," Cat says and although her back is to her sister, Lysa can hear her teasing smile. "Maybe Father means you to be Lady Littlefinger." The heat rushes to Lysa's cheeks at Cat's words, and she remembers playing at kissing in the godswood and how much she longs for Petyr to tell Cat that he does not want her to play, anymore. That he only wants to play that game with Lysa.

She knows it will never be so, she knows by the way Petyr looks at Catelyn that he would never deny her anything. She will never be his Lady, Lady Littlefinger, and really, that wouldn't be a fit match anyway, compared to the Lady of the North.

She grasps a handful of the ground, always slightly muddy from the banks of the nearby rivers, smushing it into Cat's gown and laughing at Cat's yell of dismay and her own grasp for ammunition. "Take it _back!_ " Lysa demands, and she is laughing, and then Cat is laughing, the petals in her hair falling at her feet, casualties of the newly begun war.

Winter seems very far away, in a summer castle.

_Two._

Jaime Lannister is the most handsome man she has ever seen in her life, and her lord father puts him next to Lysa at every meal, and Cat whispers to her that he is hoping for a match. The butterflies she feels when she looks at Petyr are nothing compared to the tumbles her stomach performs when she sits next to the golden squire, and she dreams of being his wife. He is brave and dreams of being a grand soldier, and Casterly Rock is no seat to sneer at, and Lysa is breathless with excitement at the thought.

She should have had more faith, she should have known her father would make as great of a match for her as he had for Catelyn, and while Brandon Stark is handsome he is certainly no Jaime, and Lysa can barely speak around the lump in her throat. Her fingers tremble and she watches them, wishing for them to lie calm. _I must learn to be calm when we are wed,_ she thinks, and her hands tremble all the more.

"Talk to him," Catelyn hisses to her, "dance with him." But she cannot form the words, and so she settles for laughing at what _he_ says, and sitting prettily – she does sit very prettily, after all.

She listens to her uncle's battle stories for the hundredth time, and imagines what her children with Jaime might look like. She thinks they will have hair like the sunrise, Tully red and Lannister gold, and they will be beautiful and hers.

Lysa cannot speak to him, so Catelyn does, and she partners Jaime in the dance while Lysa partners Petyr, but for once her thoughts are far from him. _They will be golden children,_ she thinks, and she waits for the announcement to be made in giddy delight.

The announcement never comes, Jaime is kind but does not touch her hand, and he casually inquires Lysa's father about her sister's hand, instead. Of course it is already promised, and Jaime accepts this and rides away without a second thought and without more than a cordial goodbye, and Lysa watches the banners and her hopes and golden children disappear from her window.

"He did not like me," Lysa snaps bitterly when her maid brushes her hair and inquires as to how the evening went. "He would have rather had Catelyn." _As they would all,_ she adds in her mind, and it makes her sick.

_Three._

They are children of summer, and children no more, truly. Lysa is not sure when it happened, but she sees it in the sway of Cat's hips in the dance, and the way that Petyr watches her. She can taste it in the sweetness of the wine on her lips, in the tingle that starts in her lips and spreads through her entire body and leaves a pleased hum between her legs as she, in her turn, dances with Petyr and feels his body close.

Cat spins in dizzy circles, with their brother, with Petyr, and Petyr again, and Lysa frowns at the joy on his face when he puts his hand on her waist. She is precious to him, precious to so many, precious to Lysa too but in a way that makes her want to tear out all of Cat's hair half the time.

My little lady of the castle, their father calls her fondly, and he loves Lysa, too, she knows, but she is not his little lady. And she will not be Lady Lannister nor Lady Stark nor Lady Winter, and there is nothing and no one for Lysa. She is no one's lady.

She could be, she thinks, she hopes, as she sneaks up into Petyr's bedchamber that night, she could be his, his lady, his love. He had reached for Catelyn downstairs for a kiss, but she can make him love her, with her hands and her lips and her body yielding to his. She drowns in his eyes and is reborn in his mouth, demanding on hers, and it hurts but the pain brings her alive when he is inside her, his breath hot and damp on her neck. He thrusts against her and she falls into him.

They are not playing anymore, there will be no whispered confessions and comparisons with Catelyn in her chambers that night. Tonight, he is hers and she is his and Lysa is the only woman in the world, the only Tully girl in the world, just as she so often wished it to be.

He whispers that he loves her against her neck when he is spent and there is blood and his seed drying on her thigh, and the room smells musty and sweet and she can still taste the wine on his breath. "I love you," he says, and he calls her Cat.

It twists like a dagger to her stomach at first, but it recedes to a dull ache like the ache between her legs after the surprise passes. It pains her, but she is _his_ now, and she will be what he needs. She can be Cat for him. She can be anyone and anything for him.

He rests his head upon her breast and she twines her fingers through dark hair. "And I love you," she murmurs against his temple, and holds the words to her heart. Lady Littlefinger, she thinks, perhaps, and perhaps someday it will be her name on his lips.

 _Four._

She sneaks into Catelyn's chambers as though they are children still and crawls into bed next to her sister, her arm going around her waist and her cheek pressing to her auburn hair. Tully hair, though from tomorrow forth neither will bear the Tully name.

Their feet tangle together beneath the sheets, and Lysa remembers so many similar nights full of whispered, breathless secrets, as though saying the words quietly would keep them safe. Her heart is full of secrets, now, heavier and darker than those past shared, and sometimes they weigh so heavily Lysa thinks they will consume her heart and leave her bare. She thinks of Petyr far away at his seat, far from the familiar rivers that had become his home, far from _her._

Cat thinks Petyr is gone in due to that stupid duel with Brandon Stark, but she is wrong. Sometimes Lysa wishes to tell her that she doesn't matter half as much as she thinks she does, but most of the time she does not think of that time at all, and does not question why Petyr would visit her bedchamber at night and then duel for Catelyn's hand.

It is easier, at times, not to think.

"I don't want to marry him," she whispers, her voice thick with grief, into Cat's hair. She wishes she were brave like a lion, like handsome Jaime Lannister, so that no one could make her do anything, or marry anyone, or drink _anything._ Her womb and bones ache with the loss, and she clings.

"Eddard says Lord Jon was as a second father to him," Catelyn says softly, her voice uncertain. "I am sure he will be kind." _Kindness_ isn't Lysa's fear, she could fight unkindness with teeth and nails and sharp words, and at least maybe that would incite some passion.

At least it would be some other feeling other than the dread that had rolled through her stomach when she had laid eyes on her husband to be for the first time, hairless and almost toothless and with an odd smell, and tried to imagine bedding him. _I shall pretend it is Petyr,_ she resolves, wiping her tear tracks against Cat's nightclothes. _I shall pretend it is my love._

"And you will be a great lady," Catelyn continues quietly. "All of the Vale, and the great seat on the Eyrie." She is right, Lysa will be as great of a lady as Catelyn in the North, but she does not care anymore.

She shudders with another sob, tucking her knees into Cat's. "He's so _old._ At least _your_ husband isn't older than Father and…" she breaks off when Cat gives a half-choked sob at that, and it only makes Lysa weep harder, for Cat never cries, she is the strong one, but she is hurting, too. Cat has lost something, too, and at that moment Lysa feels closer to her golden sister than she ever has. Cat cannot know what Lysa has lost, cannot know Lysa's hurt, but Catelyn is hurting still. "Oh, Cat, I'm sorry…"

Catelyn rolls over so that she can embrace her sister as well, her cheek pressing to the top of Lysa's head, and they cry together, quietly, for tomorrow there can be no more tears. Tomorrow they will do their duty.

_Five._

They look like a family, Lysa thinks, and she watches them as though through a pane of glass, for she is not part of that family. Eddard Stark laughs with her husband, his eyes crinkled in such a way that she would not have thought possible, remembering his solemn face on the day both Tully girls were wed. Catelyn listens attentively; she is part of the family now, no longer would she lay and weep with Lysa for a life lost.

 _Lord Jon was as a father,_ Lysa remembers Catelyn's words, and what does that make her, she wonders bitterly.

Her sister's skin is winter pale now, and Lysa wonders if she misses the sun. Still, she looks radiant and lovely with her hair loose in the northern style, and is pregnant _again,_ the soft curve just starting to show on her slender frame.

Lysa's own stomach is still swollen from her last babe, another babe that did not live, another fruitless attempt, another lost child. More disappointment on her lord husband's face, more tears to feed her pillow as she sleeps alone, longing for what was there and is now gone forever. Her father accursed her with poison tea, her lord husband is elderly and his seed is weak, and she will _never_ have a child of her own.

She knows her maids whisper, whisper about Cat's big strong boy, the two pretty girls and now another child on the way, whisper and wonder what is wrong with her, that she should only bear their beloved Lord Arryn dead babes. She wants to shriek and scratch at their eyes that it is _not_ her, it is _not_ her fault, there is _nothing_ wrong with Lysa.

Stark rests his hand on top of her sister's, their fingers intertwining over the curve of Catelyn's belly, and at the break in conversation he glances away from Lysa's husband to look at his wife with soft eyes. She calls him Ned and he calls her Cat, and it makes Lysa ill.

He loves her, she realizes with a start, and it makes her angry because _of course he does._ Of course he loves Catelyn, as they all do, as Petyr did and still does. Of course she is happy in her winter castle, kept warm by furs and hot springs and the love of her husband and the adoration of little children underfoot, and it was so much easier in King's Landing for Lysa to love Cat, when Lysa knew she was far away and she had imagined her so unhappy.

 _Say hello to my winter lady,_ Petyr had told her casually, so casually she could almost make herself believe that he did not still long for her. _I do hope she is not too cold so far up there._

And she had pitied Catelyn, at that moment, Lysa in her summer castle, second only to the queen and new little princess as the greatest lady at the court. How sad and lonely she must be, she had thought and she had promised herself that she would be her sweet sister, her sweet confidante the way she had been when they were both young.

 _Maybe this babe will kill her,_ she thinks and for a wild malicious moment she wishes it. She wishes Catelyn dead, and the child she carries with her, and all her little ones, and her lord husband too for good measure. Lysa would bury her under the snow like the winter lady she proclaimed to be so many years ago in a field of sunshine. _I hope she dies, and I hope it hurts._

She weeps later at her wickedness, keeping quiet so Lord Jon will not hear in his adjoining chambers, though she does not think he would come even if he did hear her cries. She cannot sleep but dreams awake, dreams that her thoughts alone struck Catelyn dead, and she shivers. She thinks of going to Catelyn's bedchambers, just to be certain, just to be sure that she has not laid a curse on her only sister, and to perhaps curl up to her back the way she would when they were young. But she does not know where Cat's chambers are in this monstrous winding castle, and does not know if she beds alone, and so she holds a vigil on her own.

She comes down the next morning in trepidation, and there is Catelyn, still fair, still glowing and happy and healthy, and Lysa is relieved, so relieved she tells herself, and not disappointed at all.

They sit at breakfast, and so it is as it ever was, Catelyn drinks from a golden chalice and Lysa swallows misery and spite.

_Six._

Ravens bring her the news that Catelyn is dead, and Lysa tears and scatters the note to the seven winds high on the Eyrie. They fall like so many snowflakes, Cat's summer snows on her winter castle. Catelyn is dead and her children are dead and her husband is dead, and it is as Lysa says.

 _I am the only Tully girl in the world,_ she thinks, and it is a satisfaction and pleasure as soothing as Petyr's touch on her cheek, and a pain that cuts as deep through her gut as the poison in her lord husband's cup. Catelyn is dead, that winter lady who tried to steal her love, who stole the babes meant to be hers, who stole the happiness that so eluded Lysa, who was so beloved by her husband and their father and their uncle and her children and their brother and Petyr, Petyr most of all. Catelyn is dead, her sister, who plaited Lysa's hair with soft fingers and wove flowers through it, who smelt of the river and the godswood out their window, who let Lysa curl up in bed with her to chase the nightmares away, who laughed and ran and danced and lived.

Catelyn is dead, and Lysa is safe and warm, tucked away high in the sky with her baby, and the winter bite had been cold for Lady Stark in the end.

Catelyn is dead, but she comes again, so young and fair and she calls herself _Sansa_ now, and Petyr loves her still, and plays at kissing the way they would when they were young, and he is hers but Lysa can feel him slipping away.

Catelyn is dead, but Lysa must kill her again, must kill her shade and her memory and be rid of her forever, must kill her in Petyr's heart and in Lysa's castle, and she pushes, and pushes, and pushes, and she holds to Petyr and her heart breaks. _I will never be rid of her,_ she thinks. _Catelyn is dead and I will never be free of her._

Catelyn is dead, and Lysa falls.


	2. Part 2 - Catelyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catelyn is the brave one, they say of her, Lysa is sweet and shy as a budding flower and Catelyn is brave, and she is strong, and if ever she wishes to weep, she instead bites the inside of her cheek to ribbons, _be brave._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part was more difficult and slower-going than Lysa's part - I think because I love Catelyn so much, and because although I feel sympathy for Lysa, Catelyn is a much more complex, and subtle, character, and I wanted to make sure I got her right (or at least as close to right as I'm capable of doing, there's always room for improvement!). As a result, this part is much longer, too, and the vignettes changed and evolved. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

_Let’s take the time to walk together while we have the sun  
You never know when temperamental weather’s going to come_  
~"While We Have the Sun" by Mirah

_One._

They dance from one pool of sunshine to the next, the light peering through the lazy branches of the tall oaken trees that hang overhead like a canopy, one that smells of fresh, growing things, and it is easy to believe that they will be young and happy forever. 

Catelyn keeps her hand wound through her sister’s, pulling her along, and Lysa holds her skirts with her free hand and follows. She is used to her sister being a step behind, she is used to being the one to lead, the bold one, the brave one; Lysa learned how to walk by pulling herself up on Catelyn’s skirts so it is as natural as being, for them. 

Their joy is short-lived, that day – they traipse through the brushes unmindful of the burrs on their dresses and sing a bawdy song played at feast the night before, and they sing loudly enough that their septa hears and gasps her horror at such highborn ladies spewing such filth and they must be punished. 

Catelyn is first and she does not weep when their septa hits her with the crop on the back of her legs, though she knows her thighs will be black and blue the next morning. She is the eldest; she must be the example, her father and her uncle and her septa tell her, and Catelyn recites their family words to herself as she is hit, _family duty honor_ reminding herself of her duty to be strong for her sister. She bites the inside of her cheek and is silent but remorseful as befitting a Tully girl, lowering her eyes. 

Lysa weeps enough for the two of them, anyway, covering her face as Catelyn receives her punishment and then wailing when it is her turn and the septa delivers three sharp blows to Lysa’s legs as well. Three for Lysa, four for Catelyn who should have know better, and Lysa collapses into a heap, her skirts around her, when it is done, her face pressed to her knees in her pain and shame. 

She is still young, Catelyn thinks, and she has time to learn duty. 

Dry-eyed, Catelyn kneels next to her sister, gently drawing her towards her so that Lysa falls against Catelyn’s lap instead, her arms around her sister’s waist and Catelyn winds her fingers through the auburn hair that matches her own. Her sister is small, still, her arms with the chubbiness of first youth and her hair softer than the feathers in her pillow. 

“It’s all right,” she soothes with a gentle voice that she remembers her mother using, what little she remembers of her mother before she grew ill and visits grew infrequent. “Don’t cry. You must be a lady.” 

“She is horrid,” Lysa sobs, and her fists clutch at Catelyn’s skirts as they had since the day she came into the world, always grasping for purchase. 

“We won’t let her bother us,” Catelyn says firmly, her fingers smoothing the tangles in Lysa’s hair. “We shall…make up our own language, and then she won’t know what we say and she won’t punish us.” 

Lysa lifts her head at that and her eyes are bright on Catelyn’s face, wide and innocent and full of hope, and excitement at the prospect of shared secrets. She is young, and easy to tears but easy to comfort, as well, and she seeks a soothing balm for her hurts. “Just for us?” she demands, and her hand is still clinging to Catelyn’s dress. 

“Just for us,” she promises, and it’s right, she thinks. They are sisters, they are born of the same rivers, and they should have secrets and they should share, and Lysa’s smile is bright as sunshine again, her upset forgotten and healed, and Catelyn feels a swell of pride. _I can help_ , she thinks, and she holds her sister close. _I can help her and she will learn._

_Two._

They come one day, with their banners of white and grey, and Catelyn watches their approach from her bedroom window with Lysa at her side, their skirts pressed together as Lysa sits on the sill and rumples her dress and Catelyn stands tall and straight and ready. 

A credit to our house, her father had said and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Family duty honor, you must be a credit to our house, and so Catelyn stands tall and Catelyn stands steady. 

“Will they speak to me, too?” Lysa had asked with her hands clasped behind her back so demurely as her maid had coiled Catelyn’s hair, braids and twists and loops and a ribbon of Tully blue to set off her eyes, her maid said. 

“Mayhaps, my lady, Lord Stark has three sons. Perhaps your lord father will seek one of the younger for you.” 

Lysa had frowned at that, and though Catelyn sat silently, her eyes went accusingly to her, _your fault._ “A younger son, that would mean I’d be lady of a northern holdfast, yes? And Cat would be Lady of Winterfell?” 

“Aye, Winterfell rules in the North,” her maid replied cheerfully, and she did not notice the flash in Lysa’s eyes, but Catelyn had, though it was gone as quickly as it had appeared, so quickly that she wondered if she had imagined the storm in her sister’s bright eyes. 

“Father will look for a higher match for you than a second son,” she says now in either case, as they see the Stark banners on the horizon, and she knows she does not imagine the tug in the corner of Lysa’s mouth, a satisfied smile, and her fingers curl into Catelyn’s palm as the grey and white grow closer until they are upon them. 

She stands in the hall and feels Lord Rickard’s cool grey eyes scrutinizing her, the way her father would examine new horses for the stables, and it is much of the same, she knows. Her septa has prepared her, he will wonder if she is fertile, if she is strong enough to stand the unbearable cold of a northern winter, if she can sew and dance and sing and run a household, if she will be a proper wife for the future Lord of Winterfell. Catelyn is quiet as is expected of her but tries with her posture and tilt of her chin and eyes and smile, tries to say _yes, yes I am enough, yes I am strong._

Lord Stark nods and her father’s hand is squeezing her shoulder fondly, familiarly, reassuringly, she has done well and he is proud. 

Outside her sister runs and laughs with Petyr, pulling him through the godswood as Catelyn would pull her in days she is told she must leave behind, and inside Catelyn stands and does her duty and does her best to look demure and presentable, and to be a credit to her house. 

Lysa comes to dinner with dirt on her dress and Petyr has a tear in his pant leg, and even little Edmure has a flush to his cheeks; they are children and Catelyn feels a pang of longing as she sits at the high table with her lovely dress and elaborate hair. She so longs to be a proper grown lady, like their mother was, like their father tells her she must be, but is it difficult when old men sit on either side of her and talk of things she does not yet understand. She must be the lady of Riverrun, her father tells her, but she envies the earth on their fingers and between their toes, envies their laughter and the sun on their skin. 

They are young still, and free, and she sees days spent laughing and running slipping away from her, and does not know if she should reach out and grasp for them desperately or let them slide on. 

She had asked her septa why her intended-to-be would not be accompanying his father to Riverrun, and her septa had laughed at her. It is not the way of the world, she says and she touches Catelyn’s hair, and says he will come next time. 

Next time, she had realized, sullenly, next time if she passes muster, for Lord Rickard would not consent to a betrothal before seeing the Tully girl, and it does not matter to anyone what Catelyn thinks of Brandon Stark, anyway. 

Lysa flounces into her room later that evening, her arms crossed over her chest and this dress, at least, is clean and so the envy is abated. “She was wrong, no one spoke to me, the entire time, not one of those northerners. I was invisible.” 

Catelyn unlaces her dress and rubs her fair skin where the boning has left angry raw marks; her maid had pulled the ribbons so tightly that morning to better show off a narrow waist and the swell of hips. She thinks of Lysa and Petyr and Edmure with laughter in their voices and the wind in their hair, she thinks of cool gazes that look only for fault and for reasons why not, and she thinks that maybe there is a joy in being invisible. 

Lysa falls to the bed with a frown and a furrow in her brow, and Catelyn stands, and tries to be a credit to her house. 

_Three._

She feels the ache in her legs, the give, when she finally moves to sit on her bed, and she smoothes her skirts over her knees and though she is clean and dry she imagines them splattered with blood, with redness and dampness running between her fingers. A bath, she thinks, she winces, and she stands to call for her maid, a bath will help, will cleanse blood and thought and guilt and leave her fresh and new. 

Her ears are still ringing from the crash of swords and _this is not play, this is not a game in the godswood, why is this happening_ and she covers her ears as she sinks down into the water’s warm embrace, as though she can block it out, as she had not downstairs, family duty honor, she had watched it all. 

The waters soothe her, as they always do, though a bath does not hold the same soothing pull of resting on the bank with her feet in the rivers outside, but she is able to close her eyes for a moment, close her eyes against Petyr’s pleading gaze on her, desperate, and what had he expected, what had he thought would happen? 

She sees it behind her closed eyelids as she tries to forget, the flash of the sword, the twist of her stomach as she thought _Brandon forgot, he forgot his promise,_ and there had been so much blood, blood on the stair and on the blade and in the water and on her hands and in her mouth and no, she is just biting her cheek so that she is quiet and still. 

Her door slams open and Catelyn’s breath hitches in surprise and she grasps for her robe with fingers that tremble still; but it is Lysa, only Lysa, and she is grateful for that, she thinks, until she sees that Lysa’s eyes are red and raw, her palms curled into tight fists at her sides, and her lips tremble with words yet unspoken. 

“Why did you let them?” she demands, and her voice is thin and high as a reed, a plucked lute string, and Catelyn feels a flush of anger in her cheeks. She had hoped for kindness, for understanding, for at the very least the simple comfort of her sister’s presence, she had not thought of angry words and blame, _I have enough blame for us both, sister._

“ _Let them_?” she echoes. “I _let_ them do nothing!” And her anger bubbles in her chest, her fingers clenching now at the rim of the tub, none of them had _listened_ to her, she had told Petyr he was being foolish, that he would prove nothing and win nothing and he was doomed to lose anyway, she had begged Brandon, pleaded for him to ignore Petyr’s demand, cajoled her father to intervene, for her uncle to give council, and her wishes and pleas and demands had fallen on deaf ears _none of them listen, none of them._

_She asks her septa why her betrothed to be does not come, she touches her hair, that is not the way, Catelyn, it does not matter what you think, Catelyn._

Lysa does not have this churning, Catelyn knows, this desire to move mountains and to move men’s hearts and thoughts with her words, Lysa turns her face to the sky and lets herself be led, by their father, by their brother, by Petyr, and takes it in with wide-eyed wonder while Catelyn longs for something more, for something real and something her own. But the world powers on, her pleading falls on deaf ears, it is as though she has never spoken at all. 

Lysa’s mouth trembles but her eyes have gone damp and soft and she approaches her sister, finally reaching after a long silent moment for her hand. “I tried to make him stop,” she says rawly, mournfully, and Catelyn is not sure what she means for Lysa had stood silent and shocked with eyes wide in horror as they fixed on Petyr Baelish standing there with a sword in hand. As though a battle could win Catelyn’s hand, could win her heart, as though they were simply prizes for a tourney and never belonged to Catelyn, herself, at all. “I did…I thought…” 

But what Lysa thinks, Catelyn never knows, and after little enough time their father sends Petyr Baelish away. He mutters at the table, about ingratitude and wretchedness, and Lysa’s fingers shake as she sips from her goblet, and then Catelyn does not see Lysa for a matter of days, either. She returns with shadows under her eyes and nail marks on her palms, but shakes her head at Catelyn’s touch on her shoulder. 

Catelyn is silent; after all, it does not matter what she thinks. 

_Four._

Catelyn is the brave one, they say of her, Lysa is sweet and shy as a budding flower and Catelyn is brave, and she is strong, and if ever she wishes to weep, she instead bites the inside of her cheek to ribbons, _be brave._

They practice the ceremony in the sept the day before the wedding, when the last rays of sunlight are scrambling for purchase, as they used to do in their youth. But it is real now and Catelyn can feel Lysa’s pulse thud in her throat as she mimes fastening the bridal cloak about her sister, and she squeezes her shoulder tightly, _be brave._

“Are you not afraid?” Lysa asks her, her voice hushed as her face is bathed all the colors of the stained glass windows, and her palm is hot and damp in Catelyn’s, as though the woolen cloak of Arryn is already settled on her shoulders in the sticky summer heat, already boiling her blood in a fevered madness. 

“No,” Catelyn answers after a beat, because they say she is the brave one and she must do her duty and be as they say. And truly, she is not _afraid._ Eddard Stark’s eyes are cool and solemn, not dancing and wild like his brother’s, but they are not cruel, they do not hint at a wish to do her unkindness, and she does not fear him. 

It is the shadow of war, on her heart, she thinks, of marriages forged for steel and sword. It is the gloom of looming womanhood and the threat of widowhood. It cuts softer than terror, it is a pull in her chest, a flutter of longing for days with her feet dangling in the river, of the mud thick between her toes and the breeze warm on her face, of flowers in her hair and grass on her dress, and she goes to kneel before the Maid for the last time and wishes to be young forever. 

Lysa watches her from afar, the dying light casting strange shadows on her face, making her seem wrong, distorted, and Catelyn tries to blink away the foreboding. “Come into the light,” she calls, and Lysa kneels hesitantly, reluctantly at her side, and keeps her eyes on her lap while Catelyn closes her eyes. 

“The North is so cold,” Lysa says, and it echoes off the stone walls, and her voice sounds like a warning, a threat, a promise. “You’ll hate it, you’ll die the first winter.” 

“No, I won’t,” she keeps her eyes closed and her voice is steady and her heart is sure. “I will be its lady.” 

Her husband to be ( _Ned, he said to call him Ned though there was no warmth, only courtesy, in his voice when he did so_ ) is so young to be so serious and somber, and he is so different from the man she had thought to marry that she must carefully rearrange her future in her mind’s eye, must make space for what is left, but it has always been the North, it has always been Winterfell that she was meant for. _I am a southern girl but I am destined for winter._

The days have been marred with tragedy and there is a promise of more ahead, and she opens her eyes and stands to move to the Warrior now, and prays that this Ned Stark does not meet his brother’s fate. She does not know him but she could be a good wife to him, she thinks, she has been raised for no differently, and perhaps that is for the best. She could be a good wife, and perhaps one day she would grow to love him, and perhaps he would even love her back, someday, in a future she can almost but not quite see. 

“What are you praying for?” Lysa calls softly from her spot by the Crone, _wisdom, fortitude._ Catelyn wonders if Lysa prays for these gifts, or if perhaps she is seeing the face of her own husband in the lines weathered into the marble, for their father said _good,_ he said _honorable,_ he said _strong,_ but Lysa whispers in Catelyn’s ear _old, dust._ She wonders if Lysa spares a prayer for Jon Arryn, leading a rebellion because he would not send his wards’ heads to his king, or if she prays for an escape, instead, if _good_ and _honorable_ are no more than sour promises to her. 

Catelyn opens her eyes, lowers her clasped hands, gazes upon the sword of the Warrior. “For peace,” she answers honestly, “and for something more than swords.” 

_Five._

They do not know her here, this court where she was last Catelyn Tully of Riverrun, and they give puzzled glances at her dark northern-cut gowns, at her unbound hair loose about her shoulders. Here her sister wears rose pink, butter yellow, the soft colors of the newly come summer with her rich auburn hair in complex braids wound about the crown of her head, and if the Tully sisters looked as mirrors on the day of their weddings, there is no mistaking them any longer. 

Lysa drips in emeralds and sapphires cold and bright as her eyes; she has always had a taste for sparkling baubles and now she has no want of them. She is second lady of the court here, honored only behind the queen, and Catelyn can see the pride in the tilt of her chin and the wave of her hand. 

Pride but no joy, she thinks as Lysa offers her a cool cheek to kiss upon her arrival to King’s Landing and stares at her with eyes like chips of ice off the Wall, as if Catelyn does not quite belong, though it had been Lysa’s words to draw Catelyn south. _The rebellion is put down and summer is here,_ she writes, _and your company would give me solace as we wait for the return of our husbands, sister._

She had hesitated to leave her babes, Robb growing so tall already and Sansa weaned and walking before she can believe it, and her hopes high for another now that the fighting is done. But the people of Winterfell love them as their own children, and the journey will be brief with the victorious army marching for the capitol, the Iron fleet smashed. Lysa’s ravens are fresh on her mind, triumph as she writes of her pregnancy and the ink splotched in the next as she writes of her loss, and Catelyn could not refuse her sister’s plea. 

But her presence at court seems to offer Lysa little comfort, and there is a cool note to her voice that is foreign to Catelyn when her sister introduces her to the lords and ladies of the south. “My sister, Lady Catelyn,” she says, as though Catelyn has no title or home of her own, as though she is at court on her sister’s mercy now that she has risen so high in the world, and perhaps that is what Lysa thinks, or perhaps that is what Lysa wishes. The lords and ladies bow their heads to the wife of the Hand and Lysa glimmers, she gleams at the honors they bestow upon her, but she does so like the rivers frozen over in Riverrun, like a cold dead thing. 

It is a veneer, pretty and false, across the court of King Robert, across Queen Cersei’s lovely visage, across her sister’s eyes of Tully blue. And Catelyn had once thought she would never long for the wild North, but she does, for it is raw and real and the hot springs in Winterfell fill the castle with life and warmth and her children’s laughter fills it with love. She closes her eyes and she sees the gleam of Robb’s blue eyes as he receives his first wooden sword, his hands far too small, she thinks, to wield _any_ weapon; she sees Sansa grasping at her skirts with a chubby baby fist the way that Lysa had once done, pulling herself to her feet with her mouth set and her skin whiter and more pure than a winter snowflake; she sees Ned, his eyes soft in a way she did not know they could be, would be, that day in the sept, his fingers in her hair to draw a lock over her shoulder with a tender touch. 

Catelyn longs for home and for something real. 

Lysa was born for this, the songs and stories she had loved with stars in her eyes, the glamour and the finery, the milk bathes and gentle smiles that mask false eyes, the flattery they pile upon her in hopes of winning favor with her lord husband, Hand of the King. But Catelyn sees the cracks, sometimes, in Lysa’s reflected face in the gilded mirror, the twitch at the corner of her mouth, a grimace, a frown as she adjusts a costly necklace around her neck. 

It is a sway, a give, but when Catelyn asks, tentatively, after Lysa’s health, her sister meets her gaze in the mirror with eyes a thousand leagues away, a wide chasm between them that Catelyn cannot begin to think how to bridge. She is the Eyrie, Catelyn thinks, she is the Eyrie high on a mountain locked behind stone walls, beautiful to behold but impenetrable. 

She kneels next to her sister’s chair, reaches for her hand, and Lysa does not pull away though her fingers are cool in Catelyn’s, not warm and tight as they were the day before their weddings. “I had thought to bring you comfort, sister,” she says, and she cannot keep the sorrow from her voice, she is the elder, she should be able to heal her sister’s hurts, as she once did in their childhood, Lysa’s head in her knee and her hands on her skirt. 

She remembers Lysa’s eyes, so sweet, so shyly glancing up, so full of hope and dreams and laughter and song, and could it really be those eyes, the eyes of her sweet little sister, that stare at her so coldly, now, with such distaste and bitterness? “How could you bring me comfort, Catelyn?” Lysa asks, her voice no higher than a whisper, her words not accusing but simply flat, simply _this is how the world is._ “How could you possibly understand?” 

Catelyn has no answer, then. Perhaps she never had the answer. 

Lysa pulls her hand back; she pulls away and away. 

_Six._

He is only a year old, but Catelyn can tell that this babe, her sister’s only living child, will not live a long and healthy life, and something inside her breaks a bit at the thought as Lysa holds him fiercely in her old bedroom of Riverrun, holds him to her as if she could forever. 

Little Robert Arryn sits on his mother’s lap, his head resting on her breast, his eyes large and startled in his pale and thin face. He is quiet and still, regarding Catelyn with wary eyes, and he looks no bigger at a year of age than Bran was the day Maester Luwin laid him in her arms for the first time.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” Lysa fairly sings, and it is the first time Catelyn can remember hearing her sister _happy_ in far too many years, perhaps since the days of their youth, the years of misery wiped clean off her face and her blue eyes vibrant, the sister Catelyn remembers from her youth, laughing and jesting in words that belonged to them alone. “Isn’t he the most beautiful boy in the world?”

“He is beautiful,” Catelyn echoes and she whispers a silent prayer to the Mother above. _Let him grow stronger, let him live and let him grow, let him have half a dozen brothers and sisters each stronger than the last._ Let the light in Lysa’s face this day last for all her days, with her days of sorrow and blood and loss behind her. 

She touches a curl on little Robert’s head, gently smoothing it back, and Lysa watches her with distrustful eyes that could make Catelyn laugh. _I have four of my own and tended Edmure much the same,_ she could say, if she were not reminded that all her sister’s labors and all these years had only brought forth this one fragile child, heir of all the Vale, heir of all Lysa’s hopes and dreams, and so Catelyn respectfully withdraws her hand and Lysa’s face clears. 

Her hands are gentle, so gentle, when she places Robert in his cradle, and Catelyn watches with fascination. It is a new Lysa, the mother, and there is a softness to her that Catelyn thought long gone in the sharpness of womanhood and courtly ways. She is the woman Catelyn had thought she would be, had hoped she would be, when she stood at Catelyn’s side in the sept with eyes full of sorrow but with still a small gleam of hope. _It will be better when the babes come,_ she had whispered to Catelyn, her eyes full of questions and wariness, and Catelyn had kissed her cheek and nodded. _Yes, it will be better then._

Lysa moves to the window and the summer sunlight lights upon her face, reflected off the rivers of their childhood, and it makes her eyes so very blue and illuminates the faint lines starting in the corners of her eyes, at the edge of her mouth. She is not a child anymore, in this room that was always hers, and neither is Catelyn, and a smile spreads across her face in this moment of peace. _See how far we’ve come,_ she wants to say to her sister. _All the war is finally over and all is finally well._

“Perhaps Jon will die, now that he has a son,” she says, and she watches the rivers, and there is such a callous coldness, such an indifference to her voice that Catelyn catches her breath and takes a step back in surprise, staring at her in shocked silence. 

“Lysa,” she says when she finds her voice, staring at her sister’s profile by the window, with _who are you, who have you become_ thudding a refrain in her head, “that is a wicked thing to say.” 

Lysa had knelt next to Catelyn in the Riverrun sept ten years past and prayed dutifully for victory for their lord husbands; Catelyn had knelt alone four years past and prayed desperately for Ned to come home to her whole, and Lysa’s prayer now, in a peaceful glow of summer sunshine, tastes like ash, like things ill done. Jon Arryn is old and not the man her sister hoped for in marriage but she knows him to be kind and honorable, choosing to give battle for what is right when others would have chosen a far less dangerous path, and her words sound like a dark curse. 

Lysa’s eyes are almost wild, the sunlight splattered across her face like the graze of a fire when she turns her face, her hands gripping the sill. Catelyn remembers seeing the grey and white banners approach, seeing the litter bearing Petyr roll away, seeing the glint of swords raised in rebellion against a mad king, all from that window with her sister’s palm in her own, and today she keeps her distance. 

She flexes her fingers and feels the emptiness, the spaces between them. 

“I am young,” Lysa reminds her fiercely. “Young, and I have a son and I can have more sons. He will have the Eyrie, and I could have my choice of husbands, handsome and wealthy and they would _adore me._ ” Her eyes are far away, she is the heroine of her fairy tale, surrounded by suitors who would beg for her favor, and Catelyn sees the fantasy on her foolish face, _oh Lysa_. On still nights she still hears the clash of Brandon’s sword against Petyr’s, and warring suitors are no fairytale, battle is real and messy and no one wins, in the end. 

She feels it then, the divide, a wider chasm than it had been in King’s Landing, the split of north and south, of castle and court, of love and sour resentment, an ache to the bone worse than the most frigid winter wind upon her cheek. _When has she grown so cold?_ Catelyn wonders. 

She is the lady of Winterfell, the lady of the North, but it is her sister who is carved of ice. 

_The Final Discordance._

She stands in front of her sister, dressed in a gown of grey trimmed with white fur and a trout clasp on her travel cloak, all Stark and all Tully, and Lysa wears all white, innocent as a maid. _I know what I am,_ Catelyn’s clothing says, and Lysa’s says nothing at all, she is a blank slate, she is loyal unto herself. She stands in front of her, and Catelyn knows she shall never meet her sister again. 

Perhaps they shall come together again, Arryn and Stark, but she sees the last bits of Lysa Tully of Riverrun, her sweet little sister, eroding away like a storm worn stone, and she knows not the woman who will remain if they should cross paths again. She is lost, behind those pale blue eyes that flash with anger and sorrow and malice and wild joys, all in the span of a heartbeat. She is being poisoned, poisoned from the inside out, and Catelyn wants to curl up and weep for the loss of her, so much slower and more painful than a life silently extinguished as their mother’s was. 

“Let me take your boy with me,” she offers suddenly, a pang in her heart for the poor sick creature, stifling under her sister’s fear and choking in her protection. “To Winterfell. The air is fresh, and he’ll have my Bran and Rickon to play with. The company of other boys will do him good.” 

Lysa raises her eyes, and the change is so sudden, so monstrous that Catelyn barely has time to blink before Lysa is upon her, her hand snatching her wrist, nails biting in so that Catelyn winces and tries to draw back, but Lysa’s grip is like an iron vice; it is as though she is holding on for dear life. 

“You would like that, wouldn’t you, Cat?” she spits, and there is such viciousness in her eyes that Catelyn draws back a step. “To steal my baby, steal my child, you take _everything._ ” And Catelyn wants to demand what she has taken, what she has done to her sister that is so terrible as to warrant such bitter spite, but Lysa presses on and presses down, pushing Catelyn backwards. She stumbles, she is taller and older but Lysa is heavier, her sorrow and loss and madness made into a cloak of flesh to try and shelter her. 

“I will kill you,” Lysa vows, but at the very least her voice trembles when she does so, perhaps there is a shred of regret for the threat. “Sister or no, if you try and take my child I will throw you from the Moon Door.” And she presses again, and Catelyn steps back, and fear grips her heart in a vice as she searches for a sign of her sister in those Tully blue eyes, and finds none. She could, Catelyn realizes, and her heart flutters like a wild caged bird in her chest, she could throw her from this mountain and that is the danger of the Eyrie, no mess, no explanation, she would just snuff out of being as if she never were in the first place.

“Lysa,” she starts, “I am your _family,_ ” and her voice cracks a bit, and she hates it, because Catelyn is the brave one, they say, but of all the dangers and evils lurking in the shadows ( _winter is coming_ ) she had not thought to look to her sister for them, she had not thought to see it in the face that once mirrored her own. 

Lysa blinks, and she releases Catelyn, suddenly, like an angry wave that breaks on a shore, but her eyes still seethe, they still accuse. “You are no family of mine,” she declares, her voice thick and her eyes filling with tears, and Catelyn blinks, shouldn’t she be the one crying? But no, it is always Lysa, always Lysa who is in need of comfort and always Catelyn who keeps her eyes dry and forges on. “And you and your companions shall leave my home now, Lady Stark.” 

She watches her sister walk away, to lock herself in a castle in the sky while Catelyn meets the wages of war again, and she knows, then, she knows that they shall never meet again.


End file.
